Last minute ADM/ransom demands on delivery of ordered BS

[sajohnson]

Tim Bartz at Long McArthur Ford in Salina, Kansas has been putting some helpful videos on YouTube. This one is very good:

"Episode 37: Dealer Markups on Orders - What Can We Learn from Each Other"


That should be queued to the beginning of the segment on legal extortion.

One thing Tim says that I was not aware of is that Ford pays attention to whether or not a vehicle is actually purchased by the person who ordered it. If not, the dealership must show a legitimate reason why. For example, financing issues, or the buyer could not wait, and purchased another vehicle. However, if the dealer cannot show a valid reason why the sale did not go through, Ford assumes the dealer slapped last minute ADM on the vehicle, forcing the would-be buyer to walk. If that happens too often Ford will cut back or eliminate their allotment of vehicles.

Tim said the dealer will often ask the person who ordered the car to write an email explaining what happened. He recommended not writing anything at all, because even an email that mentions attempted extortion (my words) can be manipulated by the dealer and then sent to Ford.

He also said (essentially) that Ford customer service is worthless in these cases -- in that they cannot/will not help. Their boilerplate statement is, "Our dealerships are independent businesses. They can do whatever they want..." As if Ford has no control over them -- yet Ford claims they cut allotments if dealers don't play nice. So in reality they *do* have significant control over them, they simply choose not to exert it.

Tim mentioned that it is a good idea to get the order signed by both parties. I can't recall if he specifically said "the sales manager" or not. That can't hurt, but there is legitimate disagreement as to whether that is legally binding -- in part because it does not reference a specific vehicle. There is obviously no VIN when the vehicle is ordered. Also, some dealers -- like ours -- flat-out refuse to sign the order summary, saying something like, "You just have to trust us."

Yeah, right.

There is more about this, and some posts by Tim Bartz, on this thread:
https://www.broncosportforum.com/forum/threads/bronco-sport-price-increases-coming-april-13-2022.5648/

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[thekingprawn]

Did I get distracted during the reading of the schedule and he mentioned BS scheduling for this week or was it not in there?

 

[sajohnson]

Did I get distracted during the reading of the schedule and he mentioned BS scheduling for this week or was it not in there?

I'm sorry, I was focused on his advice regarding last minute ADM. I didn't watch the entire video.

 

[thekingprawn]

I'm curious as to what the percentage breakdown is for good dealerships vs bad dealerships. In our information age surely more dealerships are being forced by customer knowledge to do right. Plus, how can any business stay afloat bending over the customers?

 

[sajohnson]

I'm curious as to what the percentage breakdown is for good dealerships vs bad dealerships. In our information age surely more dealerships are being forced by customer knowledge to do right. Plus, how can any business stay afloat bending over the customers?

Good question. There are clearly some good ones -- or at least people who are the exception to the rule and got good (or better than average) treatment. So in *their* opinion that particular dealer is good, but the next 10 people might have a different story. Determining 'good v bad' percentages would probably be difficult. First, "good" and "bad" would have to be clearly defined. Then large numbers of customers would have to be surveyed.

I think you're right about buyers being more informed. Using myself as an example, I found out about Ford's "Price Protection" here, and on the Blue Oval forum. Pre-internet I would not have known about that. As it happened there were no MSRP increases on our BL, but if there had been I was aware that we did not have to pay them.

As for your last question, I have 2 theories:

1) I major metro areas, the population is more transitory. There are always new marks/customers moving to the area, and old ones moving away.

2) Generally speaking, most (not all) dealerships are "bad", broadly speaking. Some are perhaps 'less bad', but almost all play at least some of the typical games to separate people from their money.

That being the case, buyers do not have a lot of options. It's almost never the case that if a person doesn't like dealer A they can go to dealer B right down the road and have an excellent buying experience.

If a person is willing to travel a long distance, they have better odds of finding a decent, honorable, ethical dealer -- but the chance of that dealer being within 20-30 minutes of their home is slight.

 

[SportWest]

Thanks for sharing. This forum has helped me navigate the retail order process and protect myself to the extent possible.

Also, some dealers -- like ours -- flat-out refuse to sign the order summary, saying something like, "You just have to trust us."

Yikes, I would've walked. My order was signed by me, the salesman, and the manager, I didn't even have to press for it. All applied discounts were also noted. So my dealer is either aboveboard or reeling me in big time with the long con!

 

[Adam CW]

There’s several Ford dealerships within an hour of where I live,

They were bending over backwards for us back in 2015 and 2019 when things were pretty good.

Our dealer has been very honest about the current situation they’re in. We had a conversation with the manager and sales guy and they flat out said they have nothing but ‘bad’ deals compared to back then. They can only do so much right now because the incentives just aren’t there.

They won’t sell to us above MSRP, that’s for sure. They’ll try to go below as much as possible. They won’t hide fees or add surprise ones. They also don’t expect us to commit to anything.

 

[sajohnson]

Thanks for sharing. This forum has helped me navigate the retail order process and protect myself to the extent possible.



Yikes, I would've walked. My order was signed by me, the salesman, and the manager, I didn't even have to press for it. All applied discounts were also noted. So my dealer is either aboveboard or reeling me in big time with the long con!

Watch your back -- they are definitely going for the long con. The phone call is coming any day now!

I should have been more clear.

Before we even went to the closest local dealer, I researched them -- as well as 2 other Ford dealers -- one 1/2 hour east, the other a half hour west.

I read all recent reviews on: Dealer Rater; Google; Yelp; and the BBB, etc. Needless to say, they all had plenty of negative reviews, but the closest looked the best. Almost all 1-2 star reviews were for service (not sales). They have been in business for >100 years(!) and have an "A+" BBB rating with only 2 complaints, both of which are closed.

So we felt pretty good about buying from them. Actually, the last new car I bought, a 2002 Subaru WRX, was from them (they're Ford/Subaru) and that went smoothly -- of course that was in 2001.

When I said they "refused to sign", there were 2 separate issues.

1) When placing the order, I noticed there was no place for dealership employees to sign, only my wife and I. I asked about that and the salesman said something like, "You just have to trust us." That bothered me, but to be honest, at the time I thought the detailed buyer's order listing everything (all options, packages, etc) from the online build tool and all individual prices with a bottom line total (MSRP) -- completed by the dealership on their letterhead, should be enough, so I didn't press it.

2) Then in the next couple days I started reading more threads here and at Blue Oval and became concerned about last minute ADM, so I emailed the salesman asking him for a signed copy of the buyer's order/order summary. He had replied to my other emails, but ignored that one. I emailed him 2 more times -- both were also ignored.

Needless to say, that raised the alert level, but after reading more here on the BS Forum (and Blue Oval) I came to realize what I wrote in the OP -- "...there is legitimate disagreement as to whether that [a signed order summary] is legally binding -- in part because it does not reference a specific vehicle. There is obviously no VIN when the vehicle is ordered."

I think it was KingPrawn here who said [paraphrasing] that a good attorney could weasel out of any buyer's order regardless of who it was signed by.

To ease my mind while waiting for our BS BL to arrive, I told myself that if the local dealer were routinely extorting people with last minute ADM, there would be some reviews mentioning it, and there are none.

While my wife and I were not asked to pay ransom, it is a known problem, which is why I posted Tim Bartz' video. Since he is employed by a Ford dealer, and he is admitting that a) extortion happens, and b) Ford does nothing to help burned customers, it has more impact.

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